FUTURE DIRECTIONSHealth psychology, behavioral medicine, and pedi-
atric psychology are growing fields, and more psy-
chologists are entering them every year. In this last
section, we discuss several health care trends, train-
ing issues for future psychologists, and important
issues for these fields to address in the future.
Health Care TrendsToday, approximately 90% of Americans belong to
some kind of managed health care plan. In managed
care systems, containing costs is a high priority. In
previous chapters, we have noted the great impact
managed care has had and will have on clinical psy-
chologists. The impact on health psychologists will be
even greater because these specialists often work in
medical centers or primary care settings. Health psy-
chologists, by virtue of their training, are well suited to
provide interventions that will serve to cut the costs of
medical care (Brannon & Feist, 2010). As business
and industry realize the costs they must absorb from
employees whose habits and lifestyles create absentee-
ism, inefficiency, and turnover, it is expected they will
use the skills of health psychologists more often.
One way to assess future health trends is to
consult the United States government’s current set
of goals and objectives to improve health over the
next 10 years. The most recent set of priorities,
Healthy People 2020 (USDHHS, 2010), presents
four overarching goals: (a) improve general health
status; (b) eliminate health disparities and inequities;
(c) create social and physical environments that pro-
mote good health; and (d) promote good health
and quality of life across all developmental stages.
Of these, (b) and (c) represent newer emphases,
reflecting the increasing diversity in the United
States as well as increasing recognition that health
is influenced by a number of factors (e.g., biology/
genetics, individual behavior and choices, health
services costs and availability, social factors, and pol-
icies that influence health).
How might these priorities and related health
trends influence the field of health psychology?
Here we mention several likely impacts.
■ Today, a larger percentage of U.S. residents are
65 years or older, and life expectancy is at an
all-time high (>77 years old). This suggests that
health psychologists will be increasingly called
upon to target this population both in research
and in services.
■ As mentioned many times throughout this
textbook, the costs of health care continue to
rise. This is one major reason, perhaps, for the
disparities we see in accessing health care.
Health psychologists are likely to be intimately
involved in improving access to health care
and to promoting healthy behavior in a cost-
efficient manner.
■ As demands for health care increase, there is
also likely to be an increased emphasis on pre-
vention efforts (see Chapter 16). Pediatric and
health psychologists will be asked to develop,
to refine, and to implement prevention, espe-
cially in the general population (primary pre-
vention) as well as among those at risk for
health problems (secondary prevention).
■ Finally, it seems likely that health and pediatric
psychologists will increasingly be part of gen-
eral medical teams in hospitals and clinics,
given their expertise in psychological and
behavioral influences on health and in health
promotion in general.Training Issues
A major source of health psychologists continues to
be clinical psychology programs (Larkin, 2009).
The scientist-practitioner and clinical scientist mod-
els adopted by most clinical psychology programs
enable them to train clinicians well suited for health
and pediatric psychology. Until recently, no other
psychology specialty offered the combination of
academic, scientific, professional, and hospital
experiences required for work in medical settings.
However, other psychology subspecialties are also
well represented in health psychology. Many of the
people cited in this chapter are social, experimental,
or physiological psychologists—not just clinical
psychologists.506 CHAPTER 17